1) Many, if not most, eReaders list books by their internal title rather than their filename. In my case (for Mobi books on my Palm, transferred manually pre-Calibre) I had to not only rename the files (so I could tell what I was transferring) but also edit the internal title.

2) I'm not sure how your system handles crossover books? (Mine didn't-a problem I never solved.) Of course Calibre doesn't seem to handle that either-but I set the series to Crossover with the true series information (both series) at the top of the comments.

So the advantage might not be Calibre's series abilities but it is (I think) an advantage to use Calibre's metadata abilities. (You can also use Tags to identify multiple series but I haven't figured out, yet, how to include the sequence numbers in that.)

If your eReader doesn't have the ability to display the series or comments metadata then there's probably little, if any, advantage to Calibre. Except that you can, maybe, use Calibre Companion to display the metadata & choose which book to read next. (I'm not sure what platforms CC works on. Not on my Palm, that's for sure.)

Seeing as I put the [seriesnamne seriesnumber] bookname in the Title in metadata, it seems that I am covered. I sort by Title, then I sort by Author, so I see everything listed nicely.

As for crossover, and sub-series, I don't think anythying could handle ir properly. If I ever come across such a situation then I will use something along the lines of [mainseries mainseriesnumber - subseries subseriesnumber] bookname in my Title.

So I won't bother with the series tag. I'll look up CC, see if it can help more.

2) I'm not sure how your system handles crossover books? (Mine didn't-a problem I never solved.) Of course Calibre doesn't seem to handle that either-but I set the series to Crossover with the true series information (both series) at the top of the comments.

Calibre handles multiple series and series universes any way you want. I created a separate custom series column labeled Universe to order books across multiple series that are part of the same universe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Except that you can, maybe, use Calibre Companion to display the metadata & choose which book to read next. (I'm not sure what platforms CC works on. Not on my Palm, that's for sure.)

Can't find the info I am looking for.
When there is a series of books, I do this with the filename:
author - [seriesname seriesnumber] bookname

I use an abbreviation for seriesname, but that is neither here nor there.

Is there any advantage in using calibre's series abilities and, if so, how?

You should use all the metadata columns correctly as you can use calibre send to options better. Today some readers support series some don't so if a reader doesn't support series you can use metadata plugboards to add series to the title when sending to your device.
Using calibre metadata columns correctly is the best way to go as it allows you export in any filename you like. And it future proofs your library so in future if you decide to do something differently you are still able to do it. I know the hurt of redoing a 700-800 ebook library

Calibre supports series and sub series. So its good for setting up universes the problem comes if you want to number them by universe timeline instead of individual series numbers. But you can add a floating point custom column. I just use the series number column to follow the universe storyline.

Dopedangel: Mine doesn't seem to work the same as yours-am I missing something? When I add the subseries it treats it as a separate series. That doesn't prevent me from setting the fractional sequence numbers but it annoys me when I'm trying to look at the entire 'universe'. Thanks.

Dopedangel: Mine doesn't seem to work the same as yours-am I missing something? When I add the subseries it treats it as a separate series. That doesn't prevent me from setting the fractional sequence numbers but it annoys me when I'm trying to look at the entire 'universe'. Thanks.

When you have hierarchical series, you click a second time on the parent and you get the Double Plus, not the normal Minus (that is now the third click)

I have been fiddling a bit and one thing strikes me. If you have 12 books in a series, you use the Series tag and a plugboard to send all 12 to your device. Then the 12 books are named nicely for you.

But I don't put hundreds of books in my device, it takes too long to find what you want. And I don't read all 12 books in a series without a break. So I send a few books at a time to my device. So I read book1 of the series. Three months later I want to read book2. In calibre, it's not so easy to see which is book2 or book3, etc.

So I'll stick to [seriesname seriesnumber] booktitle for the Title. Although it is a bit of a pain doing all the editing.

Not sure I understand this comment? If you have set the series information in Calibre you can search on series name and you get just the books in that series. You can also sort on the series column to get them put into order.

Dopedangel: Mine doesn't seem to work the same as yours-am I missing something? When I add the subseries it treats it as a separate series. That doesn't prevent me from setting the fractional sequence numbers but it annoys me when I'm trying to look at the entire 'universe'. Thanks.

Sorry I set it up so long ago I forgot you have to enable it in the options
go to preferences>look and feel>Tag Browser> add series in
categories with hierarchical items

So I have a question about series and subseries.
Let's say I have a "Discworld" series and subseries of "Rincewind", "Death", "Witches" and so on.. So I want to have books numbered diffrently for Discworld series and differently for its subseries.
For example "The Colour of Magic" is 1 in "Discworld" and 1 in "Rincewind"
"The Light Fantastic" is 2 in "Discworld" and 2 in "Rincewind".
But next one is "Equal Rites" which is 3 in "Discworld" and 1 in "Witches".
And "Mort" would be 4 in "Discworld" but 1 in "Death"
So is there a way to do it with the hierarchical setup of series? Because for me it seems that adding book to subseries takes away the number of parent series. Is Dopedangel's floating point custom column only way to achive this?

The commonest way to do this seems to be to set up a Custom column of type 'series' and then use this to maintain the second series for those cases that need it. Doing this allows the numbering in the new custom Series type column to be independent of that in the built-in one.